Wednesday, February 24, 2016

HAUNTED LOVE #1 / HAUNTED HORROR #21

In stores today-- yes, TWO issues of classic golden age horror reprints from IDW / Yoe Books (Valentine's issues too, sorry they're a bit late!) --and THE HORRORS OF IT ALL has a full story preview from each, so get 'em both for you and your dearly departed loved ones! FYI: HAUNTED LOVE #1 is the first in a 3 part misery-serious (giggle), aka ***FIRST ISSUE ALERT!!!***

6 comments:

In the second story the Ice King gets shot in the heart—the only part of his body that is alive—and gets killed. He is even melted into a puddle. But in the last panel we are told that his heart is still alive. Then how come he was stopped when he got shot? I guess the same way the immortal Snow Maiden is killed on page two by being covered in snow.

I think Lorna needs to take a closer look at that spell book. I suspect it's really a hymnal. You know, I've read this story here three times now, and I love it every time. I think I just figured it out. It must have something to do with the multi-colored worms in that last panel, which looks for all the world like she's getting attacked by concession stand candy. I couldn't possibly love that more.

That first story is Fetish central, not just for the crush fetish but the giant woman fetish and a sub-genre of the submissive fetish. They always say that fetishes are triggered by something you saw when you were young, and I bet this story manufactured a lot of those!

It also contains that favorite bit for pre-code man-hating women -- they just haven't found the right man yet.

The worms with the heads surrounding her on that one panel is a great panel!

The second story: Gil, what an ass! Which kind of pulls these stories together, Lorna hates men, but Gil gives women a good reason to hate men!

Speaking of preoccupations, "Crawling Evil" is also MISSING one. I've almost never seen so many close-ups of a little old lady character's chin without the story giving her a beard! Not seeing that can be rare enough OUTSIDE a horror story, let alone IN a horror story where she's a witch! (And it's one of those clichés I've never been fond of, so I even notice when it ISN'T there.)

Along with being a very good one in general, "The Snow Maiden" has a nice "Pygmalion" quality to it (even though Gil didn't actually create her, it still has a lot of the same idea).It also reminds me of a pulp story I read only once, called "The Seeds From Outside" by Edmond Hamilton. It's a sort of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" forerunner, about an amateur scientist who finds two seeds that fell with a meteorite, and they grow into a man and woman, which leads to a love triangle and a sad ending.

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